My Life So Far: Doris Reynolds

"If I had to my life to live over again, I'd still live in Naples

CHAD GILLIS

4:57 PM, Jan 25, 2008

Author and columnist Doris Reynolds with her dog Lucy in her living room, Thursday, January 24, 2008. Reynolds says "Lucy and I are rejoined at the hip, where ever I go, she goes." Her friends call the color of her wall 'Doris blue,' a vibrant color that appears throughout her home.

Doris Reynolds at the Taj Mahal.

Courtesy Doris Reynolds

"A Walk Down Memory Lane with Doris Reynolds"

When: 10 a.m. to noon, Monday, Feb. 7, March 10 and April 28

Where: Sugden Theater, 701 Fifth Ave. S., Naples

Admission: $25 per lecture or $85 for all four events

Information: 263-7990

Doris Reynolds was born in Kane, Pa., and moved to Charleston, S.C., as a young teenager. She dropped out of school, started working, and had a son at a young age. She worked for the Navy, both as a typist and in public relations. Her early struggle paid off years later. Reynolds has started and owned several public relations agencies, had a lengthy and successful career as a journalist and author, and even owned a Haitian art studio. She moved to Naples more than 55 years ago.

She's traveled much of the world (India, Germany, England, Turkey, Greece and Cuba). Still, Naples is the only place she'd want to live. She's a bit of a recluse, preferring to work from a studio in her rustic yet beautiful cottage near the beach. Reynolds, who won't reveal her age, lives there with Lucy, a five-year-old rescue dog. She's written books ("When Peacocks Were Roasted and Mullet Were Fried" and "Let's Talk Food"), and is Naples' official historian. Reynolds is a columnist for the Naples Daily News. She's produced a DVD on the history of Naples and is doing a four-part lecture starting Monday.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an actress more than anything. When I was 10 or 12 years old, I was in a lot of plays. When I was little I had this vivid imagination. Instead of playing with dolls, I wrote plays and had the neighborhood kids act it out. That was my entertainment. About the same time I started writing. When I was 14, I realized I had no business on the stage. But I always knew I could write.

When I was 15 years old, it was during World War II, and I had been the editor of my school paper. I was at the Charleston (S.C.) Navy yard. I was assigned in the typists pool and one day the director came in and said he was desperate and needed somebody to write a press release. I raised my hand and that was it. He went off to the war and I was appointed the director of public relations for the Charleston Navy Yard.

The admiral said I needed to quit that $10 a week job. He said I needed to take the civil service exam. I said, "I'm only 15." He laughed and said, "Don't you know how to lie?" So I took it and got the highest score you could get. I went from making $10 a week to making $100 a week.

I had a public relations business in St. Petersburg and I was making $30,000 a year. I didn't like living in St. Petersburg. It was too big a city. I came and looked at Naples in 1952 and I knew it was destiny.

I was a single mother. I had a little boy (Kenneth Daniel). I applied for a job as executive secretary and general manager of the Naples Chamber of Commerce. Seventeen men applied, and me. And I got the job because I was the only one who was willing to work for $65 a week.

It's pretty hard to give up a lucrative business when you have a young son who expects to be fed three times a day and be warm at night.

Most people think I'm a well-educated college graduate. That's not the case at all. I haven't been in a classroom since I was 15.

I think what has helped me more than anything else is that I know who I am and I know what I want. Because of that, I've had the courage to face a lot of obstacles in life.

I am not a typical Naples woman. I'm not very social. I'm not crazy about shopping. I don't play golf or bridge. I don't dress up a lot. I'm not typical, even of these very successful business women. I like being a writer because it's a secluded life and that's what I like. I like being in my home and I take time to meditate and sit out in my garden and read a lot.

I have a few close, personal friends. I meditate a lot. I don't have to go to church to find God. He's right here in my heart. I think that's where God is for everybody.

I like to think of myself as very, very sensitive to environment. I can go into someone's house and feel negative vibrations. I can feel positive vibrations.

There's always, in Naples, been a vitality. A lot of cities you go to are settled into the present, totally finished. With cities like New York and Chicago, things are happening, but the towns are pretty much finished.

I think there's a lot of spirituality in Naples if you really look for it because it's so beautiful. It's the people here, too. They had a dream. I came to be at the Chamber of Commerce and the people on the Chamber of Commerce board were talking about making Naples a better place. All the wealthy people who came here in the winter time were members of the chamber and they helped out. I've never regretted coming to Naples. If I had my life to live over again, I'd still live in Naples.

I've been all over the world and there's no place I'd rather be.

I'm not pleased with a lot of the stuff that's gone on, like tearing down the old homes on Gulf Shore Boulevard and building mansions. There's too many condos on the beach, and Naples is no longer as unique as it used to be. That part of Naples is dying.

In the 1950s, peacocks were served to royalty. And then there were the mullet fryers, and they really made a living off the wealthy people. Everybody got along and everyone was equal. When the golf course communities started coming in, that segregated us from the very wealthy. But that's fine. Things change.

In the lectures, I'm going to relate a lot of the personal stories of my own experiences with people who were in Naples in the 1950s.

A friend of mine gave me an idea of doing a DVD. My objective of this is to leave behind the real history of Naples. I didn't do the DVDs as much for the people who are here now as much as the generations to come.

They're going to learn the kind of people that came before them had the energy, had the vitality, and the money, and the skills to make this community the neat community that it is. It takes unique people.

They'll learn that Naples wasn't always the way was now.

We've got great pictures of Prohibition. We've got one woman on the pier pouring whiskey in her coffee. I knew some rum runners. They were very rebellious. People that came here were risk takers. They were people that saw the potential.